


Goodbye

by wordsareleftbehind (froggydarren)



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-18
Updated: 2013-07-18
Packaged: 2017-12-20 14:38:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/888435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/froggydarren/pseuds/wordsareleftbehind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>AN: OK, I was really cautious about posting this, because when is it too early & when will it not hurt anymore? But I wrote this ficlet as a way of dealing because that's what I do. Please proceed with caution as it's dealing with the loss of Cory. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goodbye

Everything goes dark. Chris can’t see anything, only darkness. His eyelids feel like they’re covered in a layer of lead, too heavy to move, to lift up so that there’s some light again. He can’t. There’s a familiar voice in his ear telling him to breathe, but isn’t he breathing already? Isn’t that something that just... happens?

Then he realizes that he isn’t, that he seems to have forgotten how to. So he tries, but it feels like an insurmountable task, almost like he shouldn’t when C.... no, he can’t think his name, can’t think of the words he heard over the _phone, of all the fucking ways_. But the voice in his ear repeats over and over “breathe in, Chris, breathe out, breathe in”... and he wants to shout, wants to yell at the voice to just _shut the fuck up_ , because how is he supposed to do that when... _NO!_

Eventually, the pain in his lungs is strong enough that his survival instinct kicks in and he takes a heavy breath, gasping and then coughs because it’s too much air, too much already unfamiliar stuff in his chest. The pain doesn’t leave his lungs, not entirely, but it feels different. The voice that’s been telling him to breathe is now whispering other words, ones that he can’t comprehend, ones that don’t register completely in his brain because how can things ever be okay again?

“Dar....” Chris doesn’t recognize his voice when the syllable slips past his lips.

“Shh, boo, he’ll be here soon,” whispers a voice that he _does_ recognize.

“I need...”

“I know, sweetie.”

It’s Ashley, sweet, loving Ashley whose lap his head is laying on _and how did he even get there?_ and whose fingers brush the hair from his forehead, his eyes still clenched shut. He can’t look at anything, can’t look at the world, at his house, at the photos on the wall that he knows are there. Another hand slips into his and he knows Will is there, he’s always there, of course, but Chris pulls away.

Time passes and he hears them both still reminding him to breathe, feels them trying to move him, knows they’re both trying to get him to open his eyes, but he can’t. Neither of them understands and those who do, well, he’s not sure he can handle seeing any of them. He knows the phone rang, he knows Jenna, Kevin and Mark then eventually Dianna, Naya, Matt, Jayma and Heather called. He knows how they sounded because Ashley put them on speaker and it made him want to stick his fingers in his ear and hum, but the only things he could think of were _his_ and that made the pain worse.

“No, he’s not talking,” he hears Ashley whisper into the phone when he emerges from what he assumes is sleep, but what feels like he’s drowning, “yeah, he’s on his way.”

Chris knows who she’s referring to and he wants to reach out and grab, but when he does, he recoils because the person he needs is not there. He drifts off again and his mind pleads for this all to just be a bad dream, wants to wake up and curse his meds for giving him nightmares again.

o0o0o0o

The flight takes forever, or so it feels at least. Darren’s clutching his phone in his hand, though he’s not turned it back on since he switched it off when they boarded. He’s been fighting with himself to not throw it against something because it wouldn’t stop ringing and vibrating and beeping before.

He made two calls, exactly two since he got the message. One to try and reach Lea, which resulted in him finding out that she’s on her way up _there_ now. The other one was shorter, consisting of only “he needs you” and is “I’m on my way” reply. Nothing else was needed, he knows where he has to be now and there isn’t a thing that can stop him. He knows he shouldn’t have gone alone, but his mind is on auto-pilot.

_Get home, get home, get home_ is the only thing he recognizes in the jumbled words in his mind.

The airport is a nightmare again, but he walks past, not remembering if he said anything to the waiting leeches, if he did or didn’t make a spectacle of himself. It doesn’t matter. Nothing seems to matter anymore.

o0o0o0o0o

“I’m here.”

Finally, it’s the voice Chris was craving, the pair of arms now wrapped around him where they’re laying on the floor and his brain tells him to get up, to move, to get somewhere else. But he can’t, it’s impossible to do more than to curl up in the familiar arms and _breathe, fuck he’s forgotten to breathe again_.

He hears his friends shuffle around, say they’re not leaving. He doesn’t _care_ , as long as they’re not trying to pry his fingers from the T-shirt that he’s clutching, as long as they’re not trying to separate him from his lifeline. He feels the fingers that are digging into his back, he hears the quiet sobs as Darren lets go for a moment, allowing himself to _feel_.

But Chris can’t. Maybe if he keeps holding everything back, it won’t be real anymore. He’ll wake up and it won’t have happened.

“I love you,” he hears Darren’s voice in his ear and feels his own chest heave.

It’s then that the nausea hits and somehow, he manages to scramble off the floor and dash into the bathroom. There’s nothing in his stomach to empty, but he heaves into the toilet anyway, his throat and stomach flaring up in pain as the acid hits their walls. The hand is on his back before he shifts away, before he crumbles on the tiled floor.

“I can’t...” he breathes out and doesn’t breathe in again until he feels the blackness approaching again.

“I love you,” Chris hears Darren say more firmly and he wants to say it again, but when he opens his mouth, nothing comes out.

“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” spills from his lips eventually, quietly, almost too weakly to be heard, but he knows Darren _does_ hear him.

He doesn’t want to, he can’t, the thought of letting his feelings go shoots pain through him over and over again. Because he thinks of Lea and then stops himself thinking again because his brain screams _NO, it’s just a nightmare, it didn’t happen!_ and he gasps for air again.

“I can’t... I can’t let myself,” he whispers and feels Darren’s hand clench tighter around the shoulder it’s resting on, “it’s too much, it’s … I can’t.”

“I love you,” Darren repeats quietly, “I can’t _not_ , Chris, I can’t pretend I don’t.”

It’s with those words that Chris wants to scream again, but in anger this time.

_You fucking did and made it seem easy_ , he wants to yell, _you left us hanging, you LEFT_.

But he doesn’t, because even through the wall of pain, he knows it was what they’d agreed on. He knows they both thought it was better that way, easier. Even if it turned out anything but easy.

“It doesn’t matter...” he says almost inaudibly, “it doesn’t fucking matter, does it?”

“If that doesn’t, what does?”

Chris looks up and finally opens his eyes to meet Darren’s, red-rimmed, puffy, swimming in tears that are rolling down his cheeks.

“What else matters if not that I love you?” Darren mutters again, more to himself because his eyes don’t seem to _see_.

“I don’t know...” Chris answers and forces his body to move, still on the cold tiled floor, to lean against the wall Darren’s leaning on.

Their hands find each other and their fingers slip together automatically.

“I love you too,” he finally whispers, “god, I love you, but I’m so afraid.”

Darren lets go for a moment, but before Chris’ panic attack can kick in, he’s wrapped in Darren’s arms, breathing in the familiar scent of his detergent and airplane and _Darren_ of the T-shirt.

“I love you,” Darren repeats, “I will...”

“Don’t!” Chris gasps, “Don’t promise things you can’t.”

Darren nods, understanding. They don’t move, they stay on the bathroom floor and cling to each other. Eventually, they both know they’ll have to move, to face the world, maybe sooner than they’d want to. But for now, they _stay_. Together.


End file.
